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$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'The box has been removed',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2018/09/29.jpg" alt="A tree by the road" class="framed-centred-image" width="649" height="480"/>
<section id="drudgery">
	<h2>Drudgery</h2>
	<p>
		My discussion post for the day:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			The last time I went to see a general physician, I&apos;d just acquired health insurance.
			I hadn&apos;t been to see a doctor in years, and figured it wouldn&apos;t hurt to get a check-up.
			I didn&apos;t have any health issues to speak of, aside from my being overweight, so the visit wasn&apos;t prompted by a specific health issue.
		</p>
		<p>
			I did see a dentist recently though.
			The time before this time, when I&apos;d gone, the dentist had said one of my teeth would go bad and need to be removed, but I didn&apos;t have the strength to deal with it at the time.
			I hadn&apos;t had insurance for years and had just gotten coverage.
			It sucks to be poor.
			Anyway, I&apos;d had to have five teeth removed.
			I just didn&apos;t have the strength to have a sixth tooth removed that wasn&apos;t acting up just yet.
			So they patched the tooth up, saying there was a slim chance the tooth would recover, but I shouldn&apos;t count on it.
			I took this to mean the tooth wouldn&apos;t recover and would need to go eventually, but that the dentist was trying to make me feel better about waiting.
			So I waited and let my gums heal over the gaping holes in my jaw.
			I found once the teeth were gone, the frequent ear infections I&apos;d been getting went away too.
			Infections in my teeth had been spreading through my fact to my ears, so with the main infections finally gone, I recovered.
			But, as I assumed would happen eventually, I started getting another ear infection.
			It could have been anything, but I assumed it was the tooth that caused it.
			It had finally deteriorated to the point where it too had become infected.
			Hoping to end the problem much more quickly than last time, I paid the dentist another visit and got that final tooth removed.
			I figured that like my past ear infections, this one wouldn&apos;t really go away for any decent length of time on its own.
			I had to have it removed at its source.
		</p>
		<p>
			What do I believe about my health and its importance?
			Well, that it doesn&apos;t really matter, to be honest.
			I&apos;m going to die one day, and everything I ever was will be erased forever.
			All the pain, all the joy, all the memories ... none of them matter because they&apos;ll all be gone.
			Our own mortality prevents our lives from mattering, and whether I die today or in a few hundred years, it won&apos;t really be any different for me in the end.
			I understand that&apos;s a dark way of looking at things, but as far as I know, it&apos;s the absolute truth; I&apos;ve yet to see any evidence of the existence of an afterlife.
		</p>
		<p>
			That said, I try to take care of myself for the most part.
			Despite my high capacity for logic and my understanding that this is probably all for nothing, I&apos;m still an animal.
			People often think they&apos;re somehow not animals, but humans are actually a species of ape, just like gorillas and chimpanzees, which is why we&apos;re shaped so similar to them.
			Most animals have a will to survive, and I&apos;m no exception to this.
			So while I don&apos;t think my health holds any real importance, I still engage in actions to preserve my existence, even if these efforts will all be in vain.
			While I would never bring another person into this pointless world, now that I&apos;m here, I might as well stay a while.
		</p>
		<p>
			I don&apos;t avoid medical professionals per se.
			If I don&apos;t have insurance, I avoid the crippling bills they&apos;d drop on me by not going to see them.
			And I&apos;m frequently busy, so I may postpone making appointments for a while when I have too much to do.
			But if I have time, or if a problem is big enough, I make sure to get in to see a doctor, provided I have insurance at the moment.
			Medical professionals know more about the human body than I do, so it makes sense to seek their help.
			Specialisation of duties is a major part of human society.
			When each person focuses on becoming well-versed in one or two fields instead of trying to be a jack of all trades, we are able to accomplish more and better things.
			Not being a medical professional myself, it&apos;s not my responsibility to know everything about every symptom I might experience, just like its not the job of my doctor to know how to set up and run network servers.
			I&apos;m completely open with my doctors, too.
			They can&apos;t fix a problem if they don&apos;t have the relevant information.
		</p>
		<p>
			The textbook suggests that people deal with illness using the same basic strategies as they deal with other problems (Ogden, 2017).
			This seems very true, in my case.
			I take care of problems I know how to solve, but I&apos;m not afraid to delegate to knowledgable people when I need to.
			I&apos;m also very open, to the point of admitting everything I do to a public journal.
			If I&apos;m not hiding anything from the world, why would I hide something from a medical professional that&apos;s trying to use that information to help me?
		</p>
		<p>
			Another of our reading assignments suggests that health issues - in particular, mental health issues - carry a stigma (Lakeman, McGowan, MacGabhann, Parkinson, Redmond, Sibitz, Stevenson, &amp; Walsh (2012).
			I don&apos;t really have any mental health issues to speak of though, and even if I did, they&apos;d no doubt be eclipsed by the unusual ideas I have.
			People that know me already think I&apos;m eccentric.
			Or just crazy.
			I guess people would write me off if they thought I had an actual mental illness, but it&apos;s not like they don&apos;t already write me off whenever I don&apos;t walk them through my thinking step by step and show them I actually do know what I&apos;m talking about and that I&apos;ve put many more times thought into certain things than they have.
		</p>
		<p>
			Our final reading material suggests that our social networks play a part in illness management (Patel, Chew-Graham, Bundy, Kennedy, Blickem, &amp; Reeves (2015).
			Unfortunately, I don&apos;t really have a social network to speak of.
			My parents can&apos;t be trusted, and one of them&apos;s overly judgemental, so I can&apos;t really lean on them.
			My youngest sibling still lives with the judgemental parent, so I can&apos;t really get emotional support from them.
			One of my siblings lives out of town and can&apos;t be bothered to respond to messages.
			And my final sibling is always so busy that I hate to impose.
			I though I had friends until several months ago, but they can&apos;t even be bothered to keep their promises even on simple things when I need them to, so they can&apos;t be leaned on for anything.
			I&apos;m trying to make new friends, but it&apos;ll be a while before I can establish a functioning social network.
			For now, I&apos;m pretty much alone when it comes to figuring out how to manage illness, except when I have the time to go to the doctor.
			Not everyone has a support network to depend on.
		</p>
		<div class="APA_references">
			<h3>References:</h3>
			<p>
				Lakeman, R., McGowan, P., MacGabhann, L., Parkinson, M., Redmond, M., Sibitz, I., Stevenson, C., &amp; Walsh, J. (2012). A qualitative study exploring experiences of discrimination associated with mental-health problems in Ireland. Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences, 21(3), 271-279. Retrieved from <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3ce8/1d38fd8ed2f8f37ae85f72dcc3b12850cf49.pdf"><code>https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3ce8/1d38fd8ed2f8f37ae85f72dcc3b12850cf49.pdf</code></a>
			</p>
			<p>
				Ogden, J. (2017). The Psychology of Health and Illness: An Open Access Course. Retrieved from <a href="https://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/326138/mod_book/chapter/166764/Ogden-The_psychology_of_health_and_illness.pdf"><code>https://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/326138/mod_book/chapter/166764/Ogden-The_psychology_of_health_and_illness.pdf</code></a>
			</p>
			<p>
				Patel, N. R., Chew-Graham, C., Bundy, C., Kennedy, A., Blickem, C., &amp; Reeves, D. (2015). Illness beliefs and the sociocultural context of diabetes self-management in British South Asians: a mixed methods study. BMC family practice, 16, 58. Retrieved from <a href="https://bmcfampract.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12875-015-0269-y"><code>https://bmcfampract.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12875-015-0269-y</code></a>
			</p>
		</div>
	</blockquote>
</section>
<section id="hat">
	<h2>Lost work hat</h2>
	<p>
		Yesterday, I couldn&apos;t find my work hat.
		I figured I&apos;d misplaced it somewhere after washing it.
		After work, I tried checking the laundry room to see if I&apos;d dropped it there, but I didn&apos;t see it.
	</p>
	<p>
		Today though, my neighbour gave it back to me.
		Apparently, it&apos;d gotten stuck in the drier, so when they&apos;d done their laundry after me, it ended up coming out in their load.
		I&apos;m not sure where it could&apos;ve gotten stuck in there, but I didn&apos;t see it when I took my load out and they didn&apos;t see it when they put theirs in.
		They&apos;re one of probably only two neighbours out of a few dozen that would&apos;ve recognised it as potentially being mine, too.
		I got lucky this time.
		I need to be more careful.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="cargo">
	<h2>Bicycle cargo box</h2>
	<p>
		My mother dropped by my workplace today, bringing by some bolts.
		It turns out she managed to remove the cargo box from the bicycle she gave me.
		I wasn&apos;t expecting that.
		She claims to have been able to do it because she has better tools, but I suspect she also is just better at working with screws and bolts than I am.
		I&apos;m better with tinier things, such as the screws inside computers, but she&apos;s pretty good with her hands when it comes to the larger things.
	</p>
	<p>
		So, I guess I;ll try out the cargo box when I head to the $a[EUGLUG] meeting this week.
		I don&apos;t see why it wouldn&apos;t work well, if I can get it onto the other bike.
		It might not be the right size or something.
	</p>
</section>
END
);
